


Lost Things

by MaybeBeans



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Magic, Near Death Experiences, Newly Human Castiel (Supernatural), POV Dean Winchester, Post-Canon, Post-Season 15, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26820610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaybeBeans/pseuds/MaybeBeans
Summary: There’s a secret shore, where the tide returns lost things.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Lost Things

Dean pulls his jacket around himself a little tighter as he steps off the pavement and onto the sand. The cold breeze and overcast sky aren’t exactly what he’d had in mind all those times he dreamed of a beach vacation. Whether it be the mark, or the darkness, or British asshats, or whatever else, Dean hoped each time that they’d deal with the problem, then be free to stick their toes in the sand and soak up some sun. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Another problem always arose and prevented Dean’s vacation dreams from coming to fruition.

By all accounts, they should now, finally, be free to vacation and unwind. Chuck’s defeated, the universe is balanced, there aren’t any apocalypses hanging over their heads. There’s a calm now that Dean hasn’t known since Sam was still in college.

But calm isn’t the same as peace.

A song plays in Dean’s head, calling him here like a siren. The lyrics are in a language Dean doesn’t know, but he understands what they mean. The haunting melody sings of a secret shore, where the tide returns lost things.

Somehow, he convinced Sam, Cas, and Jack to come with him.

Sam and Jack remove their shoes before taking the narrow path down to the beach. They walk ahead comfortably, chatting as the breeze sends Sam’s hair flying and he struggles to control it.

Cas takes off his shoes next, carefully untying the laces of his too-expensive, extra-comfortable running shoes that he’s become so fond of since becoming human a few months ago.

He takes them off, followed by his socks, and looks up at Dean once he’s done.

“Do you want me to wait with you?” Cas asks, glancing between Sam’s and Jack’s retreating backs and Dean’s laced up boots.

Cas’s eyes then flit up to Dean’s, and Dean immediately looks away, out to the sea.

There’s a tense moment of not-so-silent silence. The wind whistles around them, rustling the tall grass and carrying the fading sounds of Sam’s and Jack’s voices, barely audible now over the sound of crashing waves.

“I’m not gonna take them off yet.” Dean says, turning back toward Cas.

Cas doesn’t reply, and they start walking down the narrow path together.

It’s difficult for Dean walking through the sand in his boots, but Cas walks slower than he has to, keeping pace with Dean.

The path forces them close, sometimes brushing shoulders or elbows as they go. And it occurs to Dean that they always use to walk like this. He used to be so comfortable with his and Cas’s little touches and the lack of personal space.

When did that stop?

He isn’t used to the proximity anymore, and he tries to remember when that happened. He thinks maybe it was after Mary died, but that’s not true. At that point there was already this building space between them. It happened slowly, without Dean even noticing.

He tries to avoid accidentally brushing against Cas for the remainder of their walk down the narrow path to the beach.

Sam and Jack are waiting for them, standing just shy of the ocean.

“So only one of us can go at once, right?” Sam asks Dean when he gets there.

“Yeah, one person at a time. The person going has to be standing in the water.” Dean confirms for Sam and the others.

“I’ll go first, I guess.” Sam says before he sets down his shoes, rolls up his pant-legs, and walks down to the water.

He hisses a bit at the chill when the remnants of a wave meet his feet, not even covering his ankles, before receding.

“Am I in far enough?” Sam asks, despite the fact that he’s not even in the water whenever the ocean recedes. Sam seems to know he’s not far enough in, however, as he then takes another few steps forward into the ocean.

He stands with the water halfway up his shins, foam occasionally rushing up to just below knees.

“It’s not too bad.” He tells them, “You go numb pretty fast and can’t feel how cold it is anymore.” He smiles at them before something at his feet gains his attention.

Dean watches as Sam reaches into the ocean, scrambling for a bit to get a grip on something that seems to be tumbling in the waves.

Sam finally gets a grasp on it, and brings it up out of the water. It’s shiny and has a dark cord, and the whole thing is covered in seaweed. Sam pulls the seaweed off of it as he walks out of the water and back toward them.

Only once Sam’s standing right in front of them with this disbelieving and joyous smile on his face does Dean recognize what the object is through the sea-junk still covering it.

“What did the fangirls from the Supernatural musical call this?” Sam asks amused, “the ‘Samulet’, right?” Sam holds out the gold amulet for the group to see.

“Yeah something like that.” Dean says with a bit of a smile.

“I can’t believe it actually worked.” Sam says as he holds the necklace out to Dean.

“Uh uh. No way. I’m not taking that while it’s covered in seaweed and fish poop.” Sam rolls his eyes at Dean, but doesn’t pressure Dean to take it and instead gets back to work getting the worst of the goop off it.

“Supernatural musical?” Cas asks, brow furrowed in confusion.

Sam laughs. “Seriously, Dean never told you about that? Not even about Destiel?”

Dean quickly interrupts, “Who’s going next?”

“I’d like to go.” Jack says with a smile, completely oblivious to the teasing he just helped Dean avoid.

“Have at it.” Dean says, clapping Jack on the shoulder before the boy heads off to stand in the ocean.

He doesn’t seem as affected by the cold water as Sam had been, and the big dopey smile doesn’t leave his face even as the waves crash against him and get seaweed tangled up around his legs.

“Do you think the ocean would return my lost soul if I didn’t already have it back?” He asks as he watches some seagulls riding the wind overhead.

“The magic here probably isn’t strong enough for that.” Cas answers.

“Yeah I don’t think it would have given you your soul.” Dean agrees, then adds on, “Your soul wasn’t really lost. It was gone; there’s a difference.”

“What’s the difference?” Jack asks.

“Something that’s lost… it’s…” Dean struggles for words, “you just don’t know where it is. Something that’s gone is… _gone_.”

“I burned through my soul to kill Michael. So it was destroyed, not lost, even though I ended up getting it back.” Jack says slowly.

“Bingo. I think.” Dean says.

“I don’t know if anything of mine is lost.” Jack says thoughtfully. “The things I’ve lost are gone and I’ve accepted that.” Jack says. But just as he’s finishing, something catches his eye a few steps down the beach.

He splashes through the water, bringing his legs awkwardly high as he does so, and scrambles to grab something.

Once he does, he turns toward them, holding up a pink, glittery bouncy ball. One of those things you buy for a quarter or get for a few tickets at an arcade or at the dentist. The massive smile on Jack’s face is, in Dean’s opinion, way out or proportion considering it’s just a bouncy ball.

“Garth gave this to me, but I bounced it too hard and it went into a drain.”

Sam laughs while Cas responds with a small smile. Dean can’t help but feel disappointed.

He wasn’t sure what he expected when he came here. But the way it called to him, he was sure it was important. He’d hoped it would help him find what he was looking for, help him move on from all the trauma that he’s dealt with his entire life. But it looks like the ocean will only bring trinkets: childhood toys and jewelry.

Without saying anything, Castiel walks toward the ocean. Dean doesn’t even watch this time. He turns away to find a nice rock to sit on as he unlaces his boots.

When he gets them off and puts his bare toes in the sand, it’s cold and hard and a little bit wet even this far up the beach.

Dean looks back toward Cas, standing in the waves and staring out to the sea. And Dean’s heart is briefly gripped with terror. For a moment, Dean sees Castiel, black veins wrapping around his neck like tentacles, holding up his arms and wading in deeper and deeper.

A wave crashes and shakes Dean out of it, and he realizes his knuckles are turning white from where they grip the rock below him.

Dean finds himself choking up, and painfully swallows around it as he forces himself to stand up and walk to the others now that his shoes are off and he’s ready for his turn.

He reaches them just as Castiel is exiting the sea, gripping a plastic ziploc bag that’s dripping onto his pants, but Castiel doesn’t seem to notice.

“What’s in there?” Dean asks, pointing at the obscured contents of the bag.

Cas wipes away a bit more grime and smiles.

“It’s the cassette you made me.” Dean immediately remembers the one Cas is talking about. The mixtape of Dean’s favorite Led Zeppelin tracks. “I lost it when I died, when Jack was born.”

“The fact that you have to specify which time you died really shows how messed up our lives have been.” Sam says, brushing his hair out of his face with the cleaner of his two hands.

Cas shrugs, “Well, I’m happy I came back.” Sam claps him on the shoulder.

“Yeah, us too, Cas. Dean?” Sam asks, looking at him expectantly. And Dean realizes it’s his turn to enter the ocean.

While the mixtape and the samulet might be meaningful, misplaced objects aren’t what Dean was hoping to find here. But he walks into the water anyway.

It’s cold, ice cold, but it doesn’t particularly bother Dean. The instant his skin first touches the water, he hears the siren song. Not literally, but he thinks he hears it in his heart. It calls to him, and he thinks that maybe if he goes deeper into the water than the others, perhaps the waves will return to him something more.

“Dean! You’re getting your pants wet!” Sam calls to him from the shore.

“I wanna go deeper, man!” Dean calls back. “Maybe I’ll get something better; I could find Bobby’s entire house.” Sam doesn’t even rolls his eyes, he just looks on with concern.

When Dean gets past where the waves crest and he’s up to his thighs Cas calls to him, “Dean?”

“What?” Dean turns toward them.

Sam responds, “Dude, you’re gonna get sick. Come on.”

“I have more clothes in the trunk!”

“Dean—“ Cas calls, sounding more concerned than Sam had, but Dean interrupts him before he can say any more.

“I’m fine! I’m not even waist deep, it’s not like I’m gonna drown or anything. I just want to see if the magic water will give me something more for my trouble.”

“Dean!” Cas yells again, more urgently but Dean yells over him.

“Will you shut up!?” Dean yells. As he opens his mouth to say more, he’s violently hurled into the water as a massive wave crashes over his head. His body tumbles in the cold and gets thrown around in ways Dean’s mind can’t keep up with. He’s crashed into the sand several times and is numb everywhere before he even has time to realize what’s happened.

He thrashes, trying desperately to break the surface but he’s unable to. Every time he thinks he knows which way is up, he’s violently tossed and loses all sense of direction.

He thinks he might die. And as the merciless ocean beats down on him, cold and uncaring and relentless, all he can think of is Cas standing barefoot in the sand, offering to wait for Dean to take off his boots. Dean’s frozen in that moment.

And then, he breaks through to the surface, and he gasps in air as he’s struck like lightning by an epiphany.

He isn’t angry anymore. He doesn’t care that Cas didn’t tell him about the snake, he doesn’t care about being stubborn, and he doesn’t care about anger; all he cares about is fixing things with Cas.

He thinks of Cas offering to wait for Dean to take off his stupid boots, walking slowly with him because Dean’s too stubborn to take them off, waiting for Dean to forgive him and catch up and let go.

Dean realizes he’s done making Cas wait.

Somehow, the waves have brought him back to shore, and when he opens his eyes, Castiel is over him, saying something that Dean can’t hear. But Dean locks eyes with him, and he certainly doesn’t feel calm, but he does finally feel peace.

He surges forward, wrapping himself tightly around Cas, clutching at the back of his head and at his shirt.

“You’re okay, Dean.” Cas says into Dean’s shoulder and Dean nods.

He will be now.

**Author's Note:**

> CW: near drowning


End file.
